Of all the objections a salesperson is likely to hear, one of the most dreaded is the "You're too small" block, a protest that comes in many guises. "A company the size of yours can't serve a company the size of ours as we'd prefer," they'll say. Or, "You don't provide the kind of choice we're used to seeing." Or worse yet, "We'd like to deal with you, but you're just too expensive."

Ouch. Chalk up another one for the mega retailers and upstart e-tailers, right?

Just a minute, there. Hold your horses, as we liked to say when I was growing up in North Dakota. Every Achilles has his heel. And every one of those objections - and dozens of others in the "You're too small" family - is a sales courses opportunity, if you take the customer's protest and turn it on its head.

In my sales courses I call this "flipside selling," a way to reframe the perceived strengths of the big box boys as the fatal, deeply ingrained weaknesses they really are and a means of turning your small business's supposed downsides into sales courses selling points that are hard to argue with.

To get started, grab a sheet of paper and draw a line vertically down the center. On the left side of the line, list the various ways customers have of saying you're too small. As you work the list, ask yourself if there's a particular class of products, such as office chairs, that tends to bring up a distinct form of the "too small" objection. Also, be sure to note if a certain type of customer tends to raise the objection in question.

Once you've corralled all the specific, detailed objections you can think of, you can begin to flip them. On the right side of your paper, restate the objection, turning weakness into strength. Then, turn your new strength into questions you can ask prospective customers when they raise the corresponding objection.

Let's say you're having trouble selling task chairs for sales courses. When you approach new customers, you get shot down right out of the gate with objections like, "I'd rather deal with Office Monster - they've got a bigger selection than you." Or you might hear "Why would I buy from you when I can get chairs that are fine for my needs for X dollars less at Necessaries?"

Put those objections on the left side of your sheet. On the right, state the flipside of the objection. Take the first one: you might write, "Office Monster does indeed offer a wider selection than we do, but ours is deeper. They carry a few task chairs from many manufacturers, and they stick to the units they can sell cheapest. We, on the other hand, stock the chairs that are going to last more than a few months and increase comfort and productivity in the bargain." And so on.

With the flipside sales courses on paper, you devise questions to get the customer talking and ultimately bust the objection wide open. In the above example, you might ask, "How comfortable are you buying task chairs built for the lowest common denominator, chairs which practically guarantee lower back problems - and absenteeism?" Or how about this one: "Did you see the recent $49 task chair recall by the CPSC? The one where the chairs dumped unsuspecting users onto the floor? Are the savings from cheap chairs like that worth the hassles or potential legal bills?"

If you do it right, your prospect will begin to see that the perceived strengths of your competitors - unrealistically low prices, wide selection, etc. - are not so strong after all. Now that you've got your customer's objections on the ropes and they've begun to question their assumptions, it's time to move in for the knockout by pointing out some of your other strong points. Here, you can mention that your buying group gives you the power to offer prices similar to - and often better than - the competition. What about the wholesale distribution network that lets you deliver next day anywhere in the country? You might even mention that buying from you supports the local tax base and helps to ensure that a great place to live and work remains that way for a long time to come.